Watch Your Shorts
by terracannon876
Summary: aka "Watcher Shorts," an accompanying series of short stories to "Watcher."  There were many things that Izaya, who was a crow and is now a human, wanted to try and do, and the original story was simply not enough to cover them all.  AU.
1. Nagging Never Fails

I'm sorry. I really, really, **really** couldn't help it. Crowzaya is still pecking at my brain. This was actually written the day I finished the epilogue. Sigh...

Disclaimer says that I don't own any of the characters. I claim that I do own crowzaya, or at least the crow aspect.

Any OCs are also mine, of course.

So, to rephrase, this collection of short stories are from any point of the timeline, so long as it's in the crowzaya!verse. This includes past, present, and future (and yes, any hope of a sequel will probably be concealed here). As such, you have to first read "Watcher" or else you probably won't understand anything except for a very ... interesting Izaya.

Do enjoy?

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><p><strong>One<strong>

"Shinraaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaa." He pulled on the other's sleeve for effect.

"Izaya, stop that. You're going to get wrinkles in my new lab coat." The young doctor-to-be swiped the hand off.

"But I wanna go!" Izaya pulled up his best frown face, one that was notorious for touching the hearts of little old ladies and netting him free cookies.

"Oooh no. No. No, that's not going to work on me. Celty? Tell Izaya why it's a bad idea to take him to a public pool."

[D-d-don't look at me! I've never been there myself!] The Black Rider hastily waved her hands and backed up.

"You're right, I'm sorry. I shouldn't have pushed my responsibility onto you. …But still, no's a no! You'll drown and I'm not going to get hung up on some crazy lawsuit that'll end up with me being adopted away by some crazy nutbags." Shinra turned back towards Izaya with a growl.

"You just don't want to be away from Celty. "That's the whole **reason** I wanna go! So I can learn. I can't learn if I don't go, right? You're always the one telling me that experience trumps theoretical knowledge!"

"Experience doesn't mean getting a gallon of water glugged down your lungs!"

"Glug's not a word."

"Well it is now!"

By now, both of them were shouting at the top of their lungs, faces only a foot apart. [You two … are really acting like children. Do I have to separate both of you?]

"I'm not a kid!" cried Izaya, horrified, as he pointed at the other boy. Well, not a child by crow standards, that is. "He's the one being stupid!"

"Me? You have a death wish!"

[CHILDREN!] was all the warning Celty gave before she socked both of them over the head. [Shinra, just bring Izaya over, or else he'll likely die of cabin fever anyways. He's been on about this all week.]

Shinra, never one to deny a direct request from Celty, was hard-pressed to start doing so. Ultimately, his love won out over his brain firmly telling him "NO!" and he croaked out a "I'll … do it tomorrow."

Izaya cheered.

Shinra internally sobbed and dreaded the coming day.

Celty was happy for some peace and quiet, **finally**.


	2. Crow, Not Duck

**Two**

Despite his initial enthusiasm, Izaya stared at the water apprehensively. "You're **sure** that this little … ring of air in a plastic tubing is going to keep me floating."

"Yes, Izaya," replied Shinra exasperatedly. "We've gone over this a billion times. You won't drown if you have a life preserver on."

"…It's utterly embarrassing." But really, even with it on, the clear liquid wasn't looking any more appealing.

True, it had originally been Izaya's intentions to learn how to swim. It was such a useful skill, especially with escaping and hiding, and you never knew when you were going to need it. So what if Ikebukuro was land-locked? He wasn't always going to live in this city.

His fear, however, had originated from a time much further back. Back when he was still a wee little crow, he had gone through this phase where he believed that, if any bird could do it, he could too. This included swimming on the surface of the water like a duck.

Needless to say, his conquest on the water didn't end well. That was officially the point his parents disowned him as a son. Didn't want him around his younger siblings either. Bad influence, they said.

"I'll show them bad influence," he mumbled.

"Did you say something?"

"No."

"…OK." Shinra didn't seem to mind either way, although he was still looking at Izaya oddly. "Well, come on, it's your turn. Just jump in."

Izaya stood on the edge of the pool. He looked around. There were many people, all splashing around and having fun. This was the shallow end. He looked down. The water rippled, small waves up and down, caused by the pool's other inhabitants.

He took a deep breath…

…and took a step back. "I … just remembered I had to do someth-"

And suddenly, he had to take three giant steps forward to keep from falling on his face … and he stepped right into the water.

His first reaction, oddly, wasn't that he was wet. It was that he was wrapped in something, and that something was everywhere, surrounding the lower half of his body. It wasn't particularly warm, nor was it cold. It just … was.

"You can open your eyes, you know." Shinra's voice fully conveyed exactly how stupid he thought Izaya was being.

It wasn't until he said those words that the former crow realized how tightly he'd screwed them shut. He peeked one open. And then another.

He was … in the water. And floating. He moved his legs, and he wiggled a little in the water as a result.

Looks like the tube did its job.

"I'm … floating."

"Yes, told you it'd work."

"You shoved me in."

"I wasn't going to stand here for another millennium."

No, even if you waited that long, he still probably wouldn't have gone in. "No, I was going to go in right then!"

"Suuure. What was that? 'I had to do something,'" said Shinra, imitating Izaya's voice.

"What if I'd drowned!"

"Seeing as how you're here, despite all my attempts to tell you **exactly that**, I figured you wouldn't care."

Izaya frowned. "Shinra, you're really cold."

"No, I'm warm and passionate."

"But only for Celty."

"Of course. Paying attention to her takes up all my energy, all my soul. Everyone else is left with the dregs."

Izaya kicked a bit more. So this was what ducks felt like? "'Dregs?'"

"Leftovers. All that's left for you is the lukewarm me."

He kicked a bit closer to the pool edge. Progress was slow, but he was getting there. "By the way, you know how to swim, right?"

"Of course. Why?"

In response, the boy only responded by suddenly striking out and grabbing Shinra's ankle. He kicked from the pool wall and **pulled**.

_Splash!_

Izaya couldn't help the smirk on his face as the other boy fell in, surprised yelp and all.

Shinra broke the surface of the water with a gasp. "My glasses!" He put his hands to his face. Crooked, but still there. He gave a sigh of relief.

And then he looked up and narrowed his eyes in Izaya's direction.

Uh-oh.

As the former crow started to kick backwards desperately, going at no fast pace, Shinra started his steady walk towards the boy in the flotation tube.

"Izaya? It's time for Lesson 2, titled 'Let's learn how to swim in deep water.'"

"W-wait! You're skipping the 'how to swim in shallow water' part!"

"Oh don't worry. You wanted to jump right into the action, right? I'm only too glad to help."

By the end of the lesson, Izaya was very, very proficient and skilled in the art of splashing and holding his breath.

He also never wanted to go into another pool for as long as he lived.

At least he knew how to swim now. Kind of.


	3. Sundae with Cherry on Top

**Three**

One foot before the next. Run, run, run, run, and run. That was the core of the chase between him and the vicious beast behind him.

"Get out of Ikebukuro!" came the roar behind him. Izaya dodged the flying trashcan, though one of the soda cans that was in it flew out and knocked him in the cheek. With a slight cry of pain, Izaya picked up the pace and turned the corner.

Sometimes, Izaya wondered what would happen if he just let Shizuo chase him to the city borders, whether he'd stop on one side and he could stop, panting, on the other without being mauled.

Chases between Shizu and him were always close. According to his information networks, he was the only person to have put so much as a scratch on the man, and he knew that Shizuo was really one of the few people who could keep up with his speed.

**Now**, though, he had another advantage. A surprise.

He skid to a stop and flicked out his knife. He stood and waited…

…and around the corner came dear old Shizu. He swung his blade. It missed, but he had expected as much.

"Hah, you're getting slow, stupid maggot!"

"Watch your mouth there, Shizu!" Izaya jokingly warned him before running…

…straight past the other.

"Wha-?" Before he could react, Izaya had disappeared the corner again, but this time in the opposite direction. "You damn bastard! I told you to **get out**!" He swirled around to chase after the slippery man.

Only to realize that he was nowhere to be seen.

Izaya guffawed from above, as he flapped away. Shizuo looked soo confused, looking left and right, and even up the sides of the buildings. No, there was nothing here but an innocent crow.

Another two flaps and he'd cleared the building skyline. He settled himself on ledge of one and kept an eye on the bartender uniform's black and white. After another few moments of confusion, the man rubbed his head and turned away, mumbling something under his breath.

So pleased with himself, Izaya started preening right then and there.

Mm, it'd been a while since he'd last done this. He worked his beak through the feathers, moving over a little at a time. It was a little like getting a back scratch from someone, except he knew exactly where the itch was.

He hadn't seen that expression on the gorilla before. Honestly, Izaya could rationalize any number of reasons, but bottom line was something about Shizu disgusted him, repulsed him, such that it was hard to stay in his vicinity. Hell, sometimes it was hard to think that they were sharing the same **air**. Perhaps it was the fact that he was so honest to his emotions? Or perhaps It was the way he never seemed to respond to Izaya's words with anything but violence.

Ever since he was a child again, he'd known that it was dangerous to wear your heart on your sleeve. It was asking to be preyed upon. The smart hide it. The genius put on a mask that was so complete that everyone, sometimes even himself, thought that it was real.

To put it bluntly, relying on your emotions so blatantly was … uncouth. Brutish. Unrefined.

Just when he was getting the hang of the whole preening thing again – after having poked himself with his own bill a few too many times for comfort – he was interrupted, and forcibly reminded of exactly why he preferred a human life.

While birds didn't possess the same eyebrow muscles, or eyebrows at all, the glare still got across. Izaya stopped in his grooming to snarl (mentally).

Stupid. Damn. Pigeons.

It looks like they hadn't changed their habits in the past ten years. The rock doves cooed threateningly (it wasn't very effective) and puffed their chests out, trying to look larger than they really were.

What dolts. He was here. He knew they weren't as big as they looked. Besides, even fluffed up, Izaya was bigger than the lot of them.

And black feathers were so much more threatening, anyways.

Despite all of this, though, the birds were very dismayed at Izaya's lack of reaction, given the way they started clawing the ground and bobbing their heads up and down. Eventually, two of them started charging.

There was only one way to fix this terrible pestilence…

Suddenly, where there was a crow, there was a human, and apparently the featherbrains didn't like that because they all jumped and flapped their wings and tried to take off, but failed miserably. One even managed to lift off a foot before smashing onto the roof again.

This time, as a human, Izaya laughed long and hard, scaring the fat birds away for good. Their silhouettes grew smaller into the distance as he watched, snorting and chuckling all the while.

Yes, life was good, especially if it shared the best of two sides.


	4. Discovering the Basics

**Four**

It was a night just like any other. The moon hung high in the sky, almost full but with a little chunk missing out of it, like a giraffe had reached and stretched and taken a bite out of it. Izaya sat on the railing of the balcony to the Orihara's apartment. Thankfully, it was a sturdy thing, so there was no worry about tumbling to his doom below.

He wondered if perhaps the rest of the human population on this side of the planet was gazing up at the moon at this moment. He also wondered if this meant that he was sharing something special with them, like an indirect kiss of sorts.

He snorted and chuckled a bit. That was a little embarrassing and probably going a bit too far. Yeah.

"Izaiza's all red," came a voice from next to him. More precisely, somewhere around his waist and a little to the left. "Perhaps he's thinking of some long-lost love, tale broken, whose feelings he left shattered in pieces when his form changed into that of a human. Oh, what sadness! What forbiddenness!"

Izaya yelped and flailed a little before regaining his balance. He glared at his "little sister." "What do you want?" he ground out. He knew it was Mairu without even looking, simply because, after his little suggestion, Kururi just never talked. To be more precise, she said one word and expected you to understand a whole sentence. Even now, she was standing at the doorway with a completely bored expression, although he knew she was hanging onto Mairu's every word as though she really was verbally parched.

Sometimes, he wondered just how smart she really was, to condense all her thoughts into a single word. It must take more effort than just talking normally, and certainly more than talking like Mairu, who shot off her mouth now with something akin to verbal diarrhea. Then again, spouting on and on about nonsense and never shutting up probably took some special skill as well.

"Splat."

"Yeah, it's dangerous there, Izayaaa. If you had a suicidal wish, you should've told us! Then we'd have helped."

"No thanks. I'm quite fine living and dying on my own."

"Lonely."

"Yeah, Kuru's right." Mairu pulled on Izaya's sleeve so that he had to swing around to prevent himself from actually toppling over the edge. "Come on, you're our brother now! We should have family bonding time. Playing. Teasing. Fooding."

"Anything with you two inevitably ends up a disaster."

"Oh, don't say that. We love you – no wait, that's not right. Sorry, rewind. We love each other, not you, but you get our drift, right? Family. We're family, so you should have more faith in us. We're always here to help!"

"Rehearsal."

"Yeah, yeah, practice!" Mairu continued pulling on his sleeve, dragging him into the house proper, with Kururi following closely behind, poking him in the back every few steps. "You can't get better without practice, at least once a day, eight days a week. They say experience and practice are the bread of all skills, the very fundamentals."

Izaya couldn't help but wonder. "Practice **what**?" Practice playing family? He had enough of that just living under the same roof as these strange people. And really, if he did say so himself, he was quite good at it.

"Hush." Even Kururi was in on it, apparently.

"Here." Mairu stopped in Izaya's room and plopped him on the bed. He sat there, slightly apprehensive. His room was pretty plain, no real decorations that you'd find from a normal kid his age. He sometimes wondered what he'd put if he had any inclination. It wasn't like he could hang up pictures of "the human race" because that would inevitably only depict only a small portion of his love. Maybe one of the globe? Boring. Maybe shiny things, or a dartboard with Shizu's face on it. Ah, now there was an idea.

He suddenly became aware of a hand being waved in front of his face. He fought the urge to bite it. "Yes?" he snapped.

"You were in moonbrain land. Stay grounded, here, with the rest of us earthlings, please. Here." She handed Izaya a rag.

"What … is this for?"

"Cover." It was Kururi who answered from the twins' room, adjacent to his. She was apparently getting something, as he could hear the rustling and clunking of things hitting the ground.

"It's a secret," Mairu said, enjoying herself immensely.

"How the hell am I going to 'practice' anything if I don't know what the hell I'm practicing?"

"Oh just do it." With that, Mairu grabbed the rag and whipped it around Izaya's face. He fought to get it off, but then she took a hold of his wrists and forced him chest down onto the bed.

It was times like these he rued ever suggesting them to be "two but one," as they so elegantly put it. Mairu had apparently drawn the "active" stick in the personality lottery, so she had started taking Taekwondo classes. This normally wouldn't be a problem, except that she was actually good at it. Very good. It was why she managed to hit half the time she aimed for Izaya's head as a greeting kick despite his heightened reflexes. He was very proud to say that he had yet to pull his knife on her once.

Although this was coming close to breaching his limit.

"Mairu, you're going to regret this later," was all he could say, gritting his teeth. He could only hope that, being ten years younger than him, it wouldn't be anything too bad, because he couldn't flail too hard. Doing so could result in injury. To himself, of course.

His hopes were completely and utterly dashed, wiped from the face of the planet, when he felt rope being tied around his torso, arms and legs. He wiggled, but all he got for his efforts was a slight weight on his back. "Brother, we can't do this properly if you keep squiggling around like that! We might accidentally slip and tie a loose knot!"

"Tight."

"Ah, good job, Kururi! That's the perfect dead knot!"

Aagh, what were those two thinking of?

Then he felt the ominous feeling of being lifted and hefted onto two pairs of shoulders. He hadn't expected the two girls to have such strength. Mairu was obvious, but Kururi shouldn't have been able to lift a weight like him onto her shoulders. They were twins, though, so maybe she did secret training? Then again, it wasn't exactly the time to be impressed, not when the sizeable bundle on their back was in fact him.

"Stop."

"You're like a wiggly worm, Iza! Where's your pride as a bird, as the magnificent winged animals? You're turning into the prey you eat!"

No matter what Izaya wanted to scream back, it was all lost in the gag.

"Hm? Sorry, can't hear you. All righty, time for the surprise! So, we figured, since you've remained flightless this whole time, we should play the role of the worried parent and shove you from the nest! Then you'd learn to fly whether you like it or not. Crows are related to eagles, right? At least, more than humans are. Besides, it's not that bad. You've flown before, even if you **were** falling last time we saw you…"

"Pressure."

"Exactly! If there weren't a human crow on my back, I'd so snuggle my dear Kururin right now. Isn't my sister so smart? Oh wait, she's yours now too. Eh, you can have 20% of her, but I get 90%, and that's a deal!" A small silence as the two stopped. "We're heeere! Are you ready? 'Cuz here. We…"

Izaya was about to scream "No!" but his voice was muffled by the cloth and drowned out by the "Go!" He felt the two sets of hands leave him and he felt nothing against his body at all except the wind and the ropes and the anxious tension, the ominous feeling, that the ground was coming up closer and closer.

This. This had to be the stupidest way to die, **ever**.

And no, he was definitely not screaming.

He was going to get back at those two before the day was up. That was an hour to look forward to.

Damn them, damn them! He didn't **know** how these things happened! They just did!

What had happened last time?

He'd fallen.

Well, he's falling now; that wasn't going to help!

Before that. Before that, what had happened?

Memory blank. He didn't want to remember, but it couldn't have been something that far back anyways, so he fast-forwarded a little. He was flapping, weightless in the sky, but then he fell, and he thought…

Being eaten. He hadn't wanted to be eaten … and he knew he couldn't stay as a crow anymore.

And before that, he needed to get away. To run, to fly. To survive.

And so Izaya concentrated, and he wished. He concentrated on his desire to have wings, to feel the wind through his flight feathers, zipping past his eyes, lifting him up, up and away.

And he drifted upwards, he really did. He opened his eyes as the bindings fell away, and the stupid, disgusting t-shirt fell from his bill. He was in the air, and he could only caw in delight as he saw himself drifting up despite the random cloth trappings hanging off him. Those he shrugged off easily with a bit of maneuvering.

He wasn't falling anymore! He caw and cawed, squawked and whistled his joy.

Below him, he saw the two girls standing on the balcony. Mairu was waving up at him. Kururi was just gazing up in open-mouthed wonder – a rarity after her personality change.

"Free…"

"What a bore. I was hoping for something cool, like a half-birdman or something."

"Standards."

"Yeah, it is a proud moment, ain't it? Our little fledgling has taken wing! Look at him go 'round and 'round in circles! …And…he's coming closer…

…

…Izaya … too close! Too close! Aaaah!"

And Mairu ran screaming from the balcony as a berserk corvid came flapping after her, clawing and picking at her dog-eared hoodie.

Kururi brought up a pillow and smacked the raging bird with it. It just barely missed shooting him into the wall. Izaya responded by turning around and landing on Kururi's head and pulling at the cat ears on **her** hoodie.

"Evacuate!"

"Run, dear sister of mine, run for your life!"

And so they ran, with a hurricane of flying ebony feathers close on their tails. A **loud** hurricane. They circled around furniture and crawled under tables. This did not deter Izaya at all, who pursued them with a vengeance. They swerved around corners, and though he slammed into a few walls and cabinets before he could get his bearings straight around the tight bends, he tore straight off after them right afterwards.

This continued for a good hour (if anything, Izaya had to acknowledge that the girls had a lot of stamina) before they all heard the door open.

"I'm home!"

The two girls immediately switched gear and hurled towards the front door. "Moooom! Izaya's teasing us!"

"Welcome!"

The crow, for his part, had pulled a comical midair emergency halt and flown the exact opposite direction, hiding in his room. When he hit the floor again, it was with a human body. (And what was it he wanted to avoid this time? A crazy episode from all three ladies of the house? Losing his sanity?) "Was not!" was all he could manage to cry back as he tried to rid all the loose feathers from his coat. There were more on his shoulders, caught in his socks, and some in his hair.

There was some commotion outside with them. He had to hurry and do some damage control, and fast. When he finally saw himself fit for human company – it involved a lot of combing and brushing and staring at himself in the mirror - he opened the door.

Rumiko had the broom out and was sweeping up the mess left behind. Izaya cringed at the sight of the broken glass and the claw marks on the chairs and tables. There was a slice through the sofa too, when the sisters had leapt over it right before he could dive.

"Ah, there you are, dear. You shouldn't tease your sisters, you know. They are such fragile children, nothing compared to a grown man like you, and they were only trying to help. They've grown quite fond of you." With that, she reached over and plucked a feather he had missed from the hood of his coat. "Oh my, you're molting. You should take more care of yourself. Maybe I should use more veggies in my cooking? I wonder if the internet will have any suggestions about bird food?" With only that offhand comment, she added it to her pile in the dustpan and continued cleaning the floor.

Izaya could only stand there, flabbergasted. He managed to pull himself together for a "I like bean sprouts and lettuce," before turning straight around and heading back into his room.

Well, it looked like he didn't have to keep his secret around her anymore.


End file.
